


Runaway Hearts

by chanshinebaek



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 20:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15648120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanshinebaek/pseuds/chanshinebaek
Summary: They had promised that if they couldn't find the perfect fit for their silver hearts, they would force the edges of their ragged half hearts fit together. Baekhyun can clearly remember that promise sealed with their tiny pinkie fingers knot together. But it won't happen anymore--Chanyeol had already found the other half of his ragged silver heart belonged to someone who wasn't Baekhyun.





	Runaway Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hyunchanee_exo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyunchanee_exo/gifts).



> this is unbetaed, so i'm sorry for any mistakes

_"Yeol, what if we just die and never see the one who's destined for us?" asked the petite boy, Baekhyun. His lower lips pouting a bit and his droopy eyes emphasize the sadness that lays beneath it._  
  


_"It won't happen, Baek." the cocky giant speaks with the well-known optimism on his voice._  
  


_"We have this," pertaining to his own ragged silver heart necklace. "This will tell us who truly belongs to us."_  
  


_"That's the problem, Yeol. I lost mine." Baekhyun answered with the underlying sadness and who's on the verge of tears already._  
  


_"You lost it?"_  
  


_Baekhyun nods._

_"Perhaps it has only vanished.”_

_"What's the difference? It's still the same," Chanyeol sits beside Baekhyun and wraps his plump arm around Baekhyun's slim shoulder._

_"Grandma said ragged heart never gets lost. If it ever did, it only vanishes and will return when the time is right," Chanyeol explains, the curved smile on his lips show the assurance that Baekhyun needs, but it doesn't completely wash away his worries about how will he going to meet his, as cliché as it sounds, soulmate._

_"But what if it didn't?"_

_"Don't worry, B. No matter what happen to your ragged heart, mine will always be its other half."_

_To say that Chanyeol's words are the most assuring words is an understatement. It always lifts up Baekhyun's mood._

_"What if you find the perfect half of your heart?"_

_"Nah, that won't happen, like never."_

_"How sure are you?"_

_"What will I say to make it up to you, Baek? If this ragged heart tells us our destiny, I'm hundred percent sure ours will fit perfectly, if it doesn't, I know the world just made a huge mistake," Chanyeol reassured, pulling Baekhyun closer to his embrace._

_"Promise me, if the world doesn't provide our perfect half, we'll be on each other’s side until the end of the world," Baekhyun dared._

_"I promise, Baek," Chanyeol's toothy smile truly visible to Baekhyun's eyes._

_"Pinkie promise." Baekhyun says holding up his pinky finger, asking Chanyeol to knot it._

_"Promise."_

 

The ragged silver half heart necklace dangling from Chanyeol's neck glinted as a seal of that promise. And that was the promise made by the nine-year old version of Chanyeol and Baekhyun. That was fifteen years ago before everything started to change.

 

 

 

Baekhyun was just the antsy little kid that time, scared of what might happen if he ever lost his own ragged half heart pendant which will dictate his soulmate but that time, he was sure that Chanyeol will take over his life from that time until the end. He was truly reassured and confident that everything will fall perfectly into place even if the ragged heart wasn't present on his chest any more. Until one day, Chanyeol came rushing into his college dorm almost shouting that he had found the other half of his ragged heart.

 

"Baek, I already found the other half of my heart," he announced. Happy is the most parallel description written all over Chanyeol's face.

 

Who wouldn't be? After twenty-two years of existence, he finally found the one that fits his heart perfectly. Not everyone in this world can find the other half of their heart, not everyone is lucky enough just like Baekhyun, who's unluckily lost his own half heart necklace, or to what had Chanyeol said, vanished on his own.

 

"You're such a lucky guy," Beekhyun stated. The bitterness of his voice was muffled by the fake smile curved on his lips. Watching Chanyeol's amazement that he had finally found his other half, he realized how hopeless he was.

 

_The promise they made has vanished, just like the ragged half heart of him._

 

He thought that the world made a huge mistake just like what Chanyeol had said fifteen years ago.

 

_People break their promises and Chanyeol was one of those people._

 

College ended up faster than expected, life continued even after that, but Baekhyun wanted to be stuck on his past with Chanyeol. He wanted to be stuck on the memories that Chanyeol was the one for him.

 

Growing up with the giant wasn't something to be forgotten, it wasn't easy for Baekhyun to let go that innocent promise they had sealed with their tiny little pinkie fingers that made him sure the world still provided him someone to be with for the rest of his life.

 

_But people forget and perhaps Chanyeol is like any other._

 

People take advantage of the opportunity given to them and maybe Chanyeol is one of those. Gifted with someone who can fit the ragged edges of your silver heart wasn't something to be ignored, instead it should be cherished and Chanyeol did the thing.

 

_People forget but Baekhyun remembers._

 

After college, Baekhyun and Chanyeol separated ways, Chanyeol follows his destiny and Baekhyun gets stuck on his broken promises.

 

For years, Baekhyun managed to live without the giant on his side. He managed to remember everything that he knew Chanyeol apparently had forgotten.

 

If he can only find his ragged half heart, it wouldn't be this hard for him to live. Sure, everyone in this world can't manage to find the other half of their hearts, some may die half-way through it, some were just hanging on the cliff of hopelessness, waiting to be dragged, and others simply fall down the abyss of loneliness. Some just got mistaken and thought they already found but after years of being together, they realized they weren't perfectly fit for each other. But Baekhyun doesn't know where to put himself, it seemed like he doesn't perfectly fit to any of those hopeless creatures because he thought before that he truly belongs to Chanyeol, who already belongs to someone else now.

 

_Baekhyun is a hopeless case and that's an understatement._

 

 

 

Fifteen long years ago, Baekhyun had lost it, the thing that hold you in this world, the cold silver ragged heart given by their Creator. He used to wear the ragged heart on his chest, dangling and glinting near his beating heart, waiting for its other half to complete his broken one. He lost it but according to Chanyeol, it only had vanished.

 

Baekhyun asked himself, "Does vanish has an underlying meaning of coming back or reappearing again out of nowhere, or is it basically a word to describe you lose the game of life?" after he received a special invitation saying that Chanyeol will be having his bachelor's party for his upcoming wedding.

 

Baekhyun thought that Chanyeol will never leave him _but he just did._

 

The universe played a massive role to everyone's life, Baekhyun knew. But unexpectedly, it plays hard and sometimes cheats on you right in front of your butt hurt face.

 

Who would have thought that he will see Chanyeol again after a half a decade of not seeing together? In a coffee shop, where he thought Chanyeol will never set his foot again.

 

"How's life, Baek?" voice deep and low, Chanyeol asked from behind. Baekhyun truly knows that voice even after five long years of not hearing it, he shouldn't have kept that voice by heart. Sometimes people become so familiar to us that their voices turn into something emblazoned at the back of our minds, and at the tip of our tongue. In fact, it becomes a fraction of us.

 

His head followed where the voice was coming from, only to discover that Chanyeol was already taking his seat across him. With that signature smug smile he was known for, Baekhyun realized how he missed that face. _Missing someone is fine, but knowing that they will never come back is something else._

                                                                                    

"Ragged heart hasn't appeared yet?" Chanyeol mentioned. He noticed that it wasn't still on Baekhyun's neck unlike him, his silver ragged heart dangling on his chest, the coldness of it only reminds him of his responsibility to someone destined to him. He thought it was Baekhyun but he was wrong.

 

"I lost it, remember? A long time ago," Baekhyun reminded. Chanyeol felt the intensity of his stare, his longing. But chose to ignore it.

 

_He knows the reason why._

 

"It had only vanished," the giants speaks.

 

"And it will never come back," Baekhyun points out. Chanyeol wasn't expecting the pessimistic tone lays on Baekhyun voice that made him a bit shock but he hides it before Baekhyun had noticed.

 

 "I'm sure it'll be back," he said trying to light up Baekhyun's mood but it seemed like the power he had as Baekhyun's ray of sunshine vanished through the years they haven't communicated with each other. Baekhyun doesn't feel the usual ease he had for Chanyeol.

 

"I don't want to get my hopes high," he spoke, averting his droopy eyes from the giant and focusing his vision to his steaming coffee.

 

"I did a promise to you, didn't I?" Chanyeol's stare falls on to Baekhyun, adjacent to how his heart dropped on his knees every time he thinks about Baekhyun.

 

Astonished, Baekhyun met Chanyeol's stare.

 

"We made a promise to force the ragged edges of our hearts together, when we were young. Aren't we?"

 

"But you got yours," Baekhyun speaks his hopes getting high but he pulled them low, keeping himself on his place, trying not to fall too hard against the surface of false hope.

 

"Yeah," Chanyeol subconsciously nodded and that cut the string that kept Baekhyun's hope for the other half of Chanyeol's heart. He doesn't belong to someone. He half-heartedly accepted before he left his seat, before Chanyeol’s remaining words roll out his tongue saying _,_

_"But hearts change."_

It wasn't the promise that Baekhyun was holding on from Chanyeol, it was the feeling he felt for him, he knew even before the ragged heart vanished from him.

 

But who is he to change everything that has been planned by the universe? Who is he to ask Chanyeol to be with him, when there's already someone, who was destined him?

 

 

 

"Will you please go?" asked Chanyeol over the phone. Weeks after the walk-out scenario of Byun Baekhyun and three days before the said event to happen, Chanyeol managed to call Baekhyun to make sure that he will go.

 

"For friendship's sake, B. Please." He pleaded.

 

"O-oh yeah sure." _He's surely not_ but he can't do anything. He can't just avoid Chanyeol, he can't just forever avoid Chanyeol. Chanyeol is forever for him but the bittersweet part is Chanyeol shares his forever with someone else.

 

"Great, I'll meet you tomorrow--"

 

"Wait-- tommorrow?" Baekhyun asked, trying to be sure that he heard it right.

 

"Yeah, to have some talk I guess if it is just okay with you?" uncertain, Chanyeol tried to ask.

 

_"No"_ Baekhyun wanted to say. But he said, "Sure” hoping that he can change it and just run again from everything.

 

Chanyeol said his goodbye and Baekhyun's heart dropped on his knees, unknowingly.

 

It wasn't the promise he was holding on, it was his heart that beats for the giant, but unfortunately their rhythm doesn't synch.

 

"What's bothering you?" Chanyeol asked as he noticed how antsy Baekhyun was.

 

"Nothing," it was just being so near to me just like what you always did. It was surely nothing.

 

Chanyeol hummed to his answer as he nodded. But Baekhyun knew, Chanyeol knows him well, he knew he wasn't okay. He knew something's bothering Baekhyun but he chose to ignore all of it. Chanyeol knew him well, but maybe Baekhyun had changed.

 

"I wonder where your heart goes," Chanyeol suggestively said, trying to make a conversation to prevent awkward air from entering their bubble.

 

"It had been lost," Baekhyun repeated after million times of saying it to him before. He knows it really well but he was still trying to lift up your worries by saying "No, you weren't, it had only vanished." And he said it again looking to your eyes, straight to your soul and go far beyond that. And Baekhyun can't help himself be drowned to it.

 

He wishes those eyes only see him and won't look on how Chanyeol's ragged heart fit with someone who isn't him.

 

Baekhyun bitterly smiled. He lost it, he knew but he still has this string of hope that he can still find it and show Chanyeol that their hearts perfectly fit together.

 

When Baekhyun and Chanyeol were still young, innocent questions like: "What comes first, chicken or egg, sunshine or sun ray, lightning or thunder," were asked but Baekhyun, as a man as he is now asked Chanyeol, _"What comes first, love or the fitting of the hearts?"_ Chanyeol wasn't expecting the question, Baekhyun thought, as he saw how Chanyeol turned his head to him with puzzled face.

 

Baekhyun looked at him. Placid face, he seemed undisturbed and unbothered, Chanyeol was the first one to break the stare. He busied himself with the chain on his neck bearing his ragged heart, "It wasn't really important," he answered.

 

"But what if she doesn't really love you but your hearts fit perfectly together?" Baekhyun couldn't stop himself to ask.

 

"Then it wasn't really perfect after all," words from Chanyeol'd lips slip perfectly out of his tongue like he was so sure about it. It seems calculated.

 

"Maybe there's an empty hole that needs to be fixed," Chanyeol added. He is sure but Baekhyun gets confused.

 

"Do you really love her?" Baekhyun finally asked. His hope getting too high, but he's trying so hard to keep them low.

 

"Our hearts fit," Chanyeol answered with a bitter smile.

 

Their hearts fit. Not perfectly. Not completely. _Just two compatible hearts_.

 

"So you're going to spend the rest of your life with her just because of that?"

 

"I'm afraid to be alone," an indirect answer to an important question. Chanyeol made a stand. And it's to follow the _rule of the universe_ rather than to hear the voices that his heart kept on whispering for years.

 

"I understand," Baekhyun nodded. He knew the feeling of being alone and he can't imagine it any longer.

 

"How I wish your ragged heart would come back,"

 

"I've been praying it for so long."

 

They said that when two destined hearts wish the same thing together, it would come true. In that very moment, ragged heart that they have been looking for appeared inside Baekhyun's pocket, waiting to be noticed and waiting for its other half to complete its fit ragged edges.

 

“You said, if our hearts don’t fit together, the universe created a huge mistake. I think it really did.” Baekhyun said, reminding Chanyeol what he exactly said when they were young. Chanyeol let out an airy laugh.

 

“Yes, it did.”

 

And their muffled giggles fill the entire space, as if that very fraction belonged only to them.

Chanyeol used to tell Baekhyun how their hands fit perfectly together, his calloused palm can be felt against Baekhyun soft ones, his strong fingers intertwined with Baekhyun’s pretty ones. Their hands fit perfectly together.

 

_How Baekhyun wished it to be their hearts._

 

Baekhyun came rushing to the place where Chanyeol wanted him to be with.

 

Somewhere in the past, it would be the playground where they always play but now, it is the church where Chanyeol is getting married.

 

With his half heart inside his pocket, Baekyun wishes it would fit Chanyeol's. Even there's a massive percentage that it won't, Baekhyun will try. He's afraid to be alone, he knows, but he’s more afraid that Chanyeol won’t be the one for him.

 

Stepping on the brakes of his car in front the church where every promise of forever starts, Baekhyun found the well-dressed Park Chanyeol waiting for the doors to be opened, waiting for someone, whose other half of his heart truly belongs. Chanyeol’s back faces Baekhyun. With trembling hands, Baekhyun fishes his cold ragged heart inside his pocket, with all the remaining hope he had, he calls for his name, “Chanyeol.”

 

It was like a movie, when Chanyeol turned his head to face him. Face with his usual smile and everything on his back turned blurry to Baekhyun. It was like in that very moment, the world just turned for the both of them. It was like the world is meant to photograph that very sight.

 

“Baek, you come.” He said, closing the distance they currently have.

 

“Not for your marriage…” he said staring straight into Chanyeol’s soul. “But for this,” he let his hands reveal his ragged heart, dangling on the chain of his necklace. Chanyeol’s eyes went wide open. As he realized that Baekhyun found it, the one that holds him to this world, the only reason of their existence. The silver half heart, the ragged edges that will tell them who truly belongs to them.

 

“Where’s yours?” Chanyeol let his heart be seen and Baekhyun put their hearts together.

 

_It doesn’t fit._ And it will never.

 

They both saw it; the ragged edges of their hearts don’t compliment with the other.

 

Baekhyun hopes were high and down; they were taking the long way down, every second passed was equivalent to his broken pieces vanishing to sans.

 

But Chanyeol held his hand, he intertwined it. They fit perfectly, like it was meant to be.

 

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun confusedly asked as he followed the giant, who’s walking away from the church.

 

“Walking away from the world and following the path where my heart wants to take me. The church is too crowded for us. The aisles are too narrow for the eternity we could make. Our universe is out there, and I am not scared at the very least to pave it with you.”

Baekhyun smiled. It wasn’t the universe he wants to follow, it was his heart. He wants to travel the mistaken world and this time he wasn’t going to do it all along. He had Chanyeol on his side with their hands perfectly fit, plainly like their ragged heart should be. _But damn the hearts._

 

They left the doors of the church closed and will remain closed. They made a decision and that’s to be with each other. They were destined, they know and for them, ragged heart doesn’t exist to tell them what to follow, it exists to make them scatter.

 

It wasn’t the ragged edges of their silver hearts, it was their hearts that beat for one another.

 

As the both of them turned their backs against the _rule of the world_ , as Chanyeol threw away the two unfitted half hearts, as they watch the smile of _love_ lingering their faces, they both realized that perhaps or perhaps not—it is not just the heart that mattered. Perhaps it’s the love that they instilled to each other when they were still young.

 

The universe’s voices are nothing compared to the promise that screams out loud within.


End file.
